Pickles

The days are shorter and the nights are longer and both are much cooler. The green of the garden has been splashed with orange, red and yellow as the pumpkins, tomatoes and sunflowers show off their bounty. The beans and cucumbers are just about done and I have way too many. Sure signs of both a great growing season and pickling time. Whoot. Love my pickles.

I never pickled a thing before I moved here. I had to learn in self-defence or get run-over by over-ripe cucumbers moldering on the floor. With the help of a friend who not only makes pickles but jams as well, my first forays was pretty much successful ~ nobody died of botulism and things tasted like they were supposed to.

I doubt if pickling would have been as easy or accomplished if I hadn't a mentor who didn't mind me calling every 10 minutes to ask questions like "Does the brown sugar have to be packed down when I measure? Do I rinse the salt off after draining? How much water should I put in the canner?" In short I was clueless and she was very patient.

Aside from making bread and butter pickles and an awesome mustard relish, both recipes provided by the above mentioned pal, I have discovered you can pickle beans and carrots. There is one recipe I found that uses green beans, garlic and basil. Every time we are invited to a pot-luck I am asked to bring a jar of "those beans". The dilled yellow beans are pretty good and the cinnamon carrots bring an unexpected dash of colour and flavour to otherwise rather plain meals. This year I'm trying something new, dill pickles. As with all my other pickles, I'll try them first and if I don't die of food poisoning or pickle over/under flavourness, I'll serve them to others.